<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>autumn redux by nanodarlings (incendiarism)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22811668">autumn redux</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/incendiarism/pseuds/nanodarlings'>nanodarlings (incendiarism)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>boys playing god [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Addiction, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Ambiguous Relationships, Blood, Childhood Friends, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Murder, Rated For Violence, they're unhinged</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:28:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,112</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22811668</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/incendiarism/pseuds/nanodarlings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>His personal desire for entertainment pitted against a paper thin sense of morality. Something's gotta give, sooner or later.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>boys playing god [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>violently tender</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>autumn redux</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyeater/gifts">boyeater</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/haesuns/gifts">haesuns</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>[i tap on the mic] hello yes you heard that right it is my turn in this unhinged cycle we have going on! wahoo love you both &lt;3 i have no idea what i'm doing here but i hope you enjoy this thing nonetheless!</p><p>and it goes without saying that this is a work of fiction please do not engage in murder or anything of the sort ok thank you for reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Dead leaves littering the sun-kissed dirt, a cold front on the horizon. A murder of crows flies overhead.</p><p>It’s a movie set type of atmosphere, a blockbuster horror film for the records.</p><p>Donghyuck blinks away the milkiness from his eyes. There’s a time for sleep. Now isn’t it.</p><p>Muted sunlight filtering in through the faint haze of late fall. The camera pans to the slow dragging of a comatose body, blood siphoned out and pulse captured for the purposes of nothing more than sick pleasure.</p><p>Static, punctured by slow, meticulously thought out footsteps following a painstakingly planned out path.</p><p>You’ve got to be careful with these sorts of things, you see—never know when you might get caught. Hence, the claustrophobic seclusion of the woods. Hence, the solitude.</p><p>Though, isn’t that all a part of the gimmick? The burning thrill from the risk of being caught? A twisted fever, lurching up the throat and slamming into the skull in its ecstasy. Restlessness, agitation. Nuclear, drawn-out anticipation.</p><p>It’s all terribly addictive, you see. A bit of a problem, a bit of a warning sign.</p><p>But ignore the flashing red lights, ignore the alarm bells. After all, what’s one more body? Simply more fertilizer stuffed into a hollow earth, more blood diffusing through the water.</p><p>The soft thudding of his victim’s head as it skids against the ground should be commonplace at this point.</p><p>If you’re in the right mindset, you can get used to anything with enough time.</p><p>Fine, he’ll admit it: Donghyuck’s a full-blown adrenaline junkie, always chasing after the next high, after whatever he can get his hands on. And if that leads to some less-than-legal doings, well. So be it.</p><p>His personal desire for entertainment pitted against a paper thin sense of morality. Something's gotta give, sooner or later.</p><p>Ghosts of breath flashing against the killing season.</p><p>Sooner, he supposes, rather than later.</p><p>Scene cut.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>— </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Scene start:</p><p>Someone else is here.</p><p>Heartbeat stuttering. Hands twitching.</p><p>He’s been caught.</p><p>Oh, but by who? <em>How interesting.</em></p><p>A grin splits his face grotesquely, mangled by the fading light of the evening scene.</p><p>“Jaemin. What a pleasant surprise.”</p><p>
  <em>It’s all terribly addictive. No one makes it out.</em>
</p><p>“Donghyuck. I thought that you—thought that <em>we </em>had agreed to stop doing this.” In front of him, Jaemin’s fidgety—averted eyes that dart around to meet anything <em>but </em>the killer and his masterpiece.</p><p>“Don’t act like you’re any better than me. Why are you back anyways?”</p><p>More fidgeting. More nerves. Jaemin picks at a hangnail as he speaks— “Dad’s dead. Overdosed on . . . whatever he was on this time.” </p><p>Oh. “Shame. I’m sorry.” <em>Well, not really. </em>Jaemin’s dad was a bastard, even by his standards.</p><p>“No, you’re not.” </p><p>Pause. Camera angle change. Zoom into Donghyuck, into his deliberation.</p><p><em>Shit.</em> Jaemin’s right; Jaemin sees right through him. The revelation is something akin to the mania of murder. It’s been a while since he’s had company.</p><p>“I’m sorry that it happened to you,” Donghyuck amends. </p><p>Here, Jaemin seems to collect himself, finally making eye-contact. “No, you’re not,” he repeats, firmer this time. “Any longer and you probably would’ve finished him off yourself. The drugs just got there first.”</p><p>Pause again. Oh, how Donghyuck’s missed this.</p><p>“You act like you’re not the same. You act like you weren’t ready to strangle him at any given moment, and the only thing stopping you was your mom.”</p><p>“Maybe I’m a changed man.” Jaemin stands up straight—like he’s trying to convince himself as well, like he’s trying to prove a point. “It’s been years after all.”</p><p>Donghyuck’s eyebrows raise. “No, you’re not,” he parrots, stealing Jaemin’s words and draping them in a awfully mocking tone. “We’re two sides of the same rusted coin. Wretched and rotten and unsalvageable wrecks.”</p><p>He stops, letting the words hang in silence for added dramatics, before adding on— “It’s simply how everything plays out. After all, we’re all mad here.”</p><p>“Quoting Lewis Carroll at me? Didn’t take you to be the type. What, did you go back and finish high school while I was gone too?”</p><p>“You insult me; I think that Alice in Wonderland is quite the classic. Especially the Queen of Hearts, I mean—” Donghyuck pauses, drags a finger across his throat and makes a show of the gesture— “Off with their heads, am I right?”</p><p>“Ah. I see that you haven’t lost any of your charm,” Jaemin says, but he’s got that smile on, the one he used to be so famous for in their tiny town, and Donghyuck knows that he’s won.</p><p>“And <em>I </em>see that you’re still no fun. Come on, grab a limb and walk with me. It’ll be just like old times!” </p><p>And Donghyuck knows what he must look like—a wide-eyed lunatic, textbook serial killer taken straight from the big screen. But he also knows that he’s magnetic like this, boyishly good looking face shaded oddly by the branches overhead and hands reddened with the aftermath of blood-thirst, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t use it to his advantage.</p><p>They’re two sides of the same coin after all, meaning that Donghyuck knows how Jaemin’s wired. Knows how he ticks. Meaning that Donghyuck knows exactly where to aim.</p><p>And it works, as Jaemin starts to surrender and consider Donghyuck’s offer.</p><p>“Old times, you say?”</p><p>
  <em>Bullseye.</em>
</p><p>“A nice little walk down memory lane. Dose of nostalgia—nothing more, nothing less. So, what do you say?”</p><p>Jaemin laughs, brittle and quiet, but not entirely unpromising. “Sure. It’s not like there’s anything better to do ‘round this shithole.”</p><p>“Knew you’d come around eventually.”</p><p>“Don’t push your luck,” Jaemin says, but moves towards Donghyuck anyways.</p><p>Donghyuck shifts so that they share the weight of the body—and by extension the weight of the act. They trudge along in a horribly cliché sequence—the reunited childhood friends heading towards the dying sun—and what a shot it makes.</p><p>Because this is a new story. This is the same old story. This is the same old story, only shifted a few clicks down the studded ring of time. A remake of a classic, where the actors are all older and supposedly more mature, but still the same people at the core with all the same faults and tendencies.</p><p>This is a story of how easy it is to fall into patterns, of how simple it is to slip and end up back at the habits you thought you’d finally shaken off.</p><p>It’s an infectious addiction, a virus that’s nowhere near as easy to kill off as a mere human.</p><p>There is no cure. No one makes it out.</p><p>Cut. Roll credits.</p><p>The imaginary audience roars.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yes this was written in one day unbetaed yes i am still incredibly sick and slightly lightheaded yes i am on a roll with these impulsive 1k fics. who would've thought i had it in me. it's Not my best work and i've actually been told to stay off devices and simply rest by the doctors so that is what i will be doing after hitting post.....however i could not stand to go another day without writing something unhinged! so thank you!</p><p>twt: <a href="https://twitter.com/nanodarlings">@nanodarlings</a><br/>cc: <a href="https://curiouscat.me/aphelions">aphelions</a><br/> </p><p>  <a href="https://hereinevitably.dreamwidth.org/4581.html">inspiration</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>